


so full of shapes is fancy

by Aja



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Everyone is Queer, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Yuletide, Yuletide 2013, everyone is genderqueer, everyone is poly because shakespeare, idek anymore yuletide deadline ate my brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Feste sits less like Patience on a monument smiling at grief, and more like Falstaff on a bar stool laughing at happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so full of shapes is fancy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/gifts).



> Dear Thimblerig, I APOLOGIZE FOR EVERYTHING.

With the departure of Malvolio from Illyria, Feste found himself simultaneously hard-pressed for entertainment and hard-pressed to entertain. Her Ladyship was thankfully in a forgiving mood, so well-pleased was she with the delights of the matrimonial bed supplied by her new husband; but the recent events of the duke's court had left the place markedly bereft of laughter. 

Sir Toby was out of favor, apparently happily so; and while Feste would not have curried the good will of a man so repugnant had he not also had some personal motive of his own—in this instance, revenge against Malvolio—he had to admit that Toby seemed to have taken most of the members of court with him when he removed himself to the tavern where he currently spent most of his days. Particularly, he seemed to have spirited away those who laughed most frequently and easily at Feste's brand of entertainment. 

Worse, Sebastian, the new lord of her Ladyship's heart, struck Feste as a dreadfully serious young man whose attentions seemed divided three ways between his new bride, his once-dead sister, and his sometime-outlaw dear friend. To Feste's dismay, none of these circumstances conspired to make him smile at Feste's antics in Olivia's court. His sister, on the other hand: for her Feste had the highest of hopes, as she had not only proven herself game for any undertaking, no matter how scandalous, but had answered well to both her brother's surprise resurrection and her husband's surprise proposal.

It was that last point that had intrigued Feste for some days during the preparations for the wedding feast. As he watched the two couples it dawned on him that this was where the humor, if any levity was to be found in such a farce, was to resurface. For who but a man of Orsino's highly refined, highly _specific_ tastes would have so quickly proposed to a woman who not five minutes hence had been a trusted page boy?

Feste was no fool; he knew well that the secret to maintaining his edge over the world's perpetual impatience with those of his trade was to put them in an equal state of perpetual exasperation. The man whose wits are run ragged has no time to realize that he is out of sorts. And the best _kind_ of exasperation is the kind that tempts him with what he wants but may not want to admit that he wants. Thus the best comedian is the lady of the street who has the last laugh on her client; and the best Fool is the one who can tempt his betters to depths within themselves of which they previously knew nothing.

So it was that Feste conceived what would either be his undoing or his greatest triumph.

"How, now, Malviolio," he laughed when he devised the plan. "You may yet have your revenge, at mine own hands. The more fool I if this scheme proves more than foolish."

It was easy enough to convince Olivia to throw a masquerade for Orsino and his new bride; in faith the two households had practically been joined in continuous celebration since the day of their mutual weddings.

From there, what magic Feste would work required a bit more finesse.

Antonio, who while he remained Sebastian's guest enjoyed Orsino's full pardon, was yet beset with fear that no royal favor would be enough to affirm his good name in Illyria. He proved the easiest of all to manipulate.

"Do you attend the ball," he instructed Antonio, "But not as yourself. Rather, attend as someone so far unlike yourself as to draw away all suspicion that you are still engaged in those scandalous acts that so drew Orsino's ire and your own endangerment when first you landed upon this rock."

Antonio received this advice with the guileless air of a pirate who had probably never plundered a bay in his life. "What creature on earth is so removed from myself that by adopting the assemblage I should do honor to myself rather than injury?" he asked Feste,

"Why, her Ladyship, of course," said Feste. "Go you disguised as Olivia, and while you are there among the court, make you, in her guise, such sport of Antonio as to render the whole trickery nothing but blameless good will when at last you are exposed. For her Ladyship loves to be the object of a kind joke, and will surely reward your flattery with good faith."

"You are well-spoken for a Fool," responded Antonio. "And truth, I think you are right. I will do it, for I would love nothing better than to please my dear friend's lady."

"You will be well met," said Feste. "And if you have very good luck, you may please both in the same offering."

From there, he moved on to Sebastian and Viola, and in both instances, Feste was lucky, for he had an easy subject, each in the other.

"Come, my lady," he said to Viola, and later, to the other, "Come, my lord. There is a way to free your marital bed, fresh and joyous as it is, of the doubt that still persists."

"What doubt?" they said in turn, as though they still shared the same womb.

"Why, the fear that your spouse is deceived or dissembling in their affection for you," said Feste.

"You go too far in your quest for amusement," rejoined Viola, and later, Sebastian.

"And yet, 'tis not too far to observe that they loved you first in the guise of your sibling," said Feste. "'Tis true, is it not? There is an easy way to know the truth of their affection. Simply disguise you as your twin and attend the masquerade. There do your best to make love to your beloved while dressed in the guise of your opposite. For sure, the attempt will be unsuccessful, and there you will have the ultimate proof of your love."

"And yet if the guise be seen through, thou wilt have me caught out in a deception," said Viola wryly.

"Nay, nay," answered Feste. "Only say it was in tribute to your recent escapades, and the device which brought you together."

"And if the 'device' prove far too successful in gaining her interest?" asked Sebastian, squinting. "What then?"

"I would never dare impugn the lady's honor," said Feste. "I only offer you a clear path to removal of the doubt you so obviously manifest."

With twin frowns they answered him in such skeptical, non-committal language as to convince Feste they were both equally obsessed with the plan and would participate fully—and each without any awareness of his scheme for the other.

Two more pawns in place, and only the king and queen to go. Feste donned his smoothest wiles.

"Given the joy of your marriage, my Lord / my Lady, it is with the earnest desire to please that I do inform you that your bride / your husband have been shrouded with doubt."

Such good hearts, the both of them—though admittedly not too bright. They readily demanded to know in what way they could have possibly alarmed their beloved.

"Merely that the noble-hearted Viola / Sebastian, for naught but love and the desire to please you, has grown worried that you think them the worse for having so adopted a disguise, however well-intentioned."

What could the generous Orsino and the good-hearted Olivia do to assure their respective Cesarios that such was not the case? Feste was only too happy to inform them.

"Why, attend the ball in the disguise of your neighbor," Feste said. "Remind Viola/Sebastian of the harmlessness of her / his own folly by partaking in it yourself. Do you go to the masquerade in full garb as the Lady Olivia / the Duke Orsino. And then, so disguised as to be the very portrait of the Lady / the Duke herself / himself, show Viola / Sebastian by your devoted attention to her / to him for the remainder of the evening that she / that he is completely without fault."

With this, the final piece lay upon the board of Feste's devising: for he had piqued the interest of both the Duke and Olivia, and by his count that left only one part to play in the game of the evening: his own.

With painstaking care he dressed for the evening of the ball, and by the invitation of the court arrived in splendid detail as the pageboy, Cesario.

"Mark you well the lord and lady, and their new bride and husband," he told the serving girls before entering the ball. "Make sure their wine glasses are full."

Thus it was that throughout the evening, in any one of a half-dozen private rooms, Feste found, but of course was in no way the wiser to, the merry havoc he had wrought:

At half-past 8:00, the Duke, disguised as Olivia, could be heard telling a distressed Sebastian, who wore the guise of Viola, that he loved nothing so well as her, and hoped his humble attempt at showing it had won her favor. At roughly a quarter of, with the proper application of the very best Burgundy her Ladyship's stores had to offer, Sebastian's distress was rather sounding quite a bit different, and the Duke was getting acquainted with a rougher side to his Viola than he had ever quite considered before.

At nine on the hour, her Ladyship was weighing the knowledge that it was hardly right for two men to hold hands, as she even now held hands with her beloved Sebastian under the disguise of Orsino. However, her conviction that surely her Sebastian could see the love she bore him behind her disguise won out, as did the manly strength of the embrace with which he bore her to the couch in her private sitting room. Meanwhile Viola, whose manly strength had been activated in sheer panic, was alarmed at her husband's apparent devotion to her brother, and more than a little concerned that the idea, far from being repellant, rather made her want to keep playing the part. In any case, how they had wound up in Lady Olivia's private chambers was a subject of some confusion, and something she would strenuously suggest they remedy, as soon as she retrieved the use of her hands—oh, and her tongue—oh, and her—oh!

At approximately a quarter of ten, an Olivia stumbled into one of her Ladyship's side rooms, a disheveled Cesario not far behind. Upon seeing yet another Olivia in front of them, embracing a still-rumpled Viola, the interrupting Olivia, much to everyone's surprise, murmured, "Oh, Sebastian, your disguise reveals the truth of your beauty all the more plainly," and leaned in for a devastating kiss which the Viola in question, after a long shocked moment, gladly returned. As the kiss deepened, Viola could be heard to murmur, "Antonio, dearest, do you know me even thus?" as the second Olivia looked on in confusion. Feste, who was of course disguised as Cesario, observed the proceedings, and his lordship's consternation, with no little amusement, and indeed a bit of mild sympathy. "Cesario?" Orsino said, blinking at him out of Olivia's painted face.

"I serve your pleasure, my lord," said Feste, in a perfect spirit of generosity, moving into his arms. "Or shall I call you 'my lady'?"

As the time drew nearer to midnight, and the wine flowed long throughout the party, it would certainly be remiss to suggest that two Olivias, an Orsino, and three variants of a petite blond androgyne all converged in her Ladyship's private chambers, or that the ensuing ruckus frightened the serving maids and could be heard outside down to the stables. It would certainly be unthinkable to remark that her Ladyship failed to attend the masquerade award ceremony, presumably because she was in her own chambers being thoroughly unmasked herself with the assistance of the duke of Illyria, two nubile twins, a very enterprising entertainer and a lovesick pirate.

But it certainly is no speculative gossip to note that Feste's income increased threefold after Her Ladyship's masked ball; nor to note that for weeks afterwards, upon meeting her Ladyship in the corridors or assembly, Feste only had to murmur, "Midsummer madness, indeed," with a certain sort of smile, to incur a blush, a giggle, and an affectionate remonstrance from her Ladyship. 

And if her Ladyship saved her best remonstrances for the bedroom, where she and Sebastian were now frequently joined by any and all of the evening's companions, including Feste himself—

Well: what was a Fool, if naught but the sole of discretion?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [So Full of Shapes is Fancy [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4613529) by [the_dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl)




End file.
